Been slow around here, as recent injuries have taken their toll on office morale, but December is always busy. QS holiday 2017 tees are now available at Supreme Soho and Brooklyn. Arriving at other shops this week and next. Online soonish?

Probably one of the most fried concepts for a recent skate video, but in the best way possible — Kyota Umeki filmed an entire skate video on a Nintendo 3DS with a fisheye taped to it. 90% of it is filmed within like, five blocks of the L.E.S. Park. I also have “Groove Is In The Heart” stuck in my head now, great.

The crew behind Newark’s Shorty’s spot (R.I.P.) was allotted a piece of land by the city, in which they have begun to build a bowl. They’re looking to raise money for supplies, concrete trucks, etc. to speed up the project. If you’ve been to Shorty’s even once, please donate whatever you can so they can continue forward with the Shorty’s spirit ♥

Bobby Worrest has a comprehesive interview with “The Nine Club,” with a detailed discussion re: the lost art of skate spot politics and east coast aversion to wax. (His favorite Bobby Worrest part is also “Looks Ok To Me.”)

QS Sports Desk: Imagine if the Knicks did a subtler trust the process-esque strategy instead of doubling-down on iso-Melo and then trying to force the triangle onto the modern NBA for the past decade? Eh.

Chromeball has a great interview with Thomas Campbell about the early days of skate magazines, which also touches on the making of the first Supreme video / short film from 1996. “Some people had beef with those [Euro] articles because they felt those countries didn’t support skateboarding. Whatever. Who cares. We’re on the Earth. Go skate whatever you want.” You heard your boy Mars got water now?

Japan is rife with vivid recreations of American culture. A pair of Levi’s from the 1940s, a burger spot from the 1950s, a jazz bar from the 1960s — each one’s history is studied in excruciating detail before the Japanese begin creating their own, oftentimes superior version of these quintessentially American things. It should come as no surprise that they are masters of another top-ten American invention: the kickflip.

American kickflips are for the mass market. Sure, there’s Reider up Fish Gap, Westgate over the bump-to-bar or Cyrus 1Oak over the garbage, but most of the time, they’re flipped and thrown in a pile. Our culture is in a constant state of making things faster, bigger, louder, though not necessarily better. First we had big flips, now we have bigger flips. Not better flips, they’re just bigger with more spins. We come from a place of deluxe editions and super sizes, so why not a hardflip revert late flip or a 900 shove-it? Mastering a classic is boring; let’s add a 270 to it.

We are failing to elevate Mr. Mullen’s seminal invention. It is stagnating in the country of its birth.

Japanese culture is well known for its attention to detail. They seem to master everything they pursue, sometimes even surpassing original versions of things indigenous to other places. Why else do Americans fly to Japan, convert dollars to yen, and spend money on superior Japanese versions of traditionally American products? So in hindsight, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to learn that the most impressive D.I.Y. spot I’ve ever seen — save Burnside, FDR and places that have been around for twenty-plus years — was in Japan.

There is minimal English information about Yume Farm on the internet. It is an actual farm and campsite, serving as a hour-away escape from Tokyo life for anyone willing to make the drive. The skatepark though — …doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s a smooth island of concrete in the middle of the woods. It sits on a mellow slope and there is no sign that it was ever a building foundation. The only story behind how it came to exist was “three years ago, the park gave it to the skaters and said they could build whatever they want on it.” The people who brought us here had last skated it three months prior, and in that time, the entire tall transition section got built.